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that. I’ll love you no matter what. You don’t have to apologize.”
    Paul held her tight.
    When they separated he asked, “This Derrick is pretty special to you, huh?”
    Mallory shrugged, but her bashful smile told the truth.
    “ Don’t worry. You’ll get your driver’s license soon enough, and then you can visit your friends whenever you want. I’ll even knock the drive time off your curfew.”
    “ I’m not worried. As long as I can keep in touch with everyone, and if they’re really my friends, then nothing will change, right?”
    Paul nodded. “We’ll just have to make sure you do stay in touch with everyone, and a surefire way to do that is to have a pool party.”
    Mallory grinned. “Really?”
    “ Absolutely,” Paul told her. “Invite whoever you please. We can get one of those mile-long submarine sandwiches, and you can blast the music until the neighbors call the cops.”
    Mallory cocked her head.
    “ Well, okay, maybe not that loud.”
    “ You’re serious?”
    “ I’ll even take BJ to the movies so you can have the place to yourself. How many parents say that?”
    “ Awesome!”
    “ Of course, there’ll be a certain level of responsibility involved.”
    Mallory’s head bobbed an enthusiastic “yes” before he even finished the sentence.
     
     
    CHAPTER 5
     
    Penelope Styles steered her Dodge Neon into the far left lane of the highway then watched the conversion van following behind her mimic the move in the rearview mirror.
    “ Shit,” she whispered to herself. “Shit, shit, shit.”
    She swept several strands of purple hair off her forehead, feeling a cold sweat that had risen from her skin. In the mirror, the van’s headlight blazed like eyes of a jack-o-lantern.
    She first noticed the vehicle about a half-hour ago, just after dusk, when she accidentally passed the exit ramp to north Highway 169. She’d been fiddling with her MP3 player, trying to change playlists, and ended up driving an extra six miles west before realizing she’d missed her turnoff.
    That’s when she’d spotted the van.
    She didn’t know how long it had been in her wake, but it pulled up behind her as she exited the Interstate to turn around, then followed her back east to the ramp she’d overshot earlier. It could’ve been a harmless coincidence—the two of them making the same mistake at the exact same time—but after becoming aware of the van, she’d kept tabs on its location behind her, noticing it would speed up when she did but wouldn’t pass when she slowed. Now she watched the driver copy her lane changes while she weaved through traffic, displaying a new level of boldness that made her neck hairs quiver with unease.
    “ Prick,” she shouted at the image in the rearview mirror.
    She glanced at the Neon’s control panel and cursed again.
    The car needed gas.
    She preferred to stay on the road, content to let her vehicular stalker remain on her trail all the way to her parents’ cabin in Clearwater Creek—and to her father’s shotgun collection. Unfortunately, her parents’ place was still a good forty minutes away, and the needle of the fuel gage was already tipping precariously near empty. Like it or not, she needed to stop.
    Keeping in the left lane, she eased her car alongside a pickup truck towing a horse trailer. It was only a little after ten, but traffic had already thinned out, and she’d made sure to stick close to the few cars still on the road.
    The van trailed behind her, less than a car-length away. Up ahead, the next exit ramp flashed into view, its turnoff bordered by signs promoting food, gas, and lodging.
    “ Okay, asshole,” she said to the image in the mirror, “follow this!”
    With the exit ramp almost on top of her, she slammed on the gas and made a hard right, cutting in front of the truck and up the ramp at the last moment. Horns blared from angry motorists behind her, and tires squealed on the pavement.
    She looked in the rearview mirror the second she hit